A Closer Look at the Newtown 911 Tapes Release

This week, officials in Newtown, Connecticut, released audio files containing 911 calls made during the mass shooting last year that left 28 dead, including the gunman and his mother.

A judge ordered the tapes release in response to a public records request made by the Associated Press. Carolyn Lumsden is opinion page editor at the Hartford Courant. She wrote a piece in Thursday’s paper called “Heart and Heroism on the Newtown 911 Calls.” We asked her what she was thinking when she first listened to the 911 calls.

Lumsden said in our interview she didn’t hear on the tapes, but the Courant‘s digital editor, Christine Taylor, points out that on the raw tapes, you could hear shooting. Taylor says the Courant chose to post only edited excerpts.